Our student evacuees were carried for a while by the energy of the events, but it’s begun to wear off, especially after their experience yesterday in the admissions office at Georgia State (GSU). I think everyone was cordial and I know that the university’s offer is generous, for which we are grateful, but there were lots of kids in similar situations, some of them worse, and the boys returned, for lack of a better word, depressed. They want to talk to UGA. I will call UNCW Tuesday morning, because his brother has been enrolled there since September 2001 and he would have a place to live, without additional expense. Also, it just so happens, that they have superior programs in both the field of his major, Writing, and his minor, Film Studies. We shall see. He still wants to go back to New Orleans. The University area of Uptown is still in relatively good shape. That was his little world and it’s intact, which is a comfort. They know how lucky they are to have left. They’ve heard the horror stories of those who stayed behind, and they have some sense that their house is dry, although they know the water is close because they’ve seen people on television wading to their armpits three blocks away at the intersection of S. Claiborne and Napoleon. But St. Charles Avenue in that part of town is dry and they remain hopeful.
We formally move into our new apartment Tuesday morning. It wasn’t leased with the idea that he would be living at home, but we’ll manage. I’m grateful to have him with us. The ladies downstairs, our dear friends, have asked us if we would “keep” their piano (they need the extra space), an idea which appeals to my student musician evacuee. We’ll miss living above them, they have become wonderful comforting friends, but we’re only going one building over and I’m sure we’ll beat a well-worn path behind the building, above the creek and the spillway between our new door and theirs.
I know so many people who have evacuees living with them. One of them put me in touch with another family living with relatives looking for normalcy for their high school senior son, who happens to be a baseball player. I made sure he will be playing fall ball and I’ve just heard that, following outreaching gestures from an old friend to me, and then me to the evacuee Dad, the son will be one of forty evacuees taken in by the independent Catholic high school my student evacuee attended. I am so pleased to be a part of the long line of people who made that happen.
As I mentioned in my edit to my last entry, Houston has really stepped up to the plate. I don’t believe that the masses of people who needed to be evacuated, the ones who were starving and dying of thirst and the absence of the most rudimentary care and supplies, were easy to place. I do believe that the nature of the population stranded in New Orleans, the fact that they were mostly very poor and primarily comprised of people of color made it harder to find communities willing to take them and exacerbated the fiasco that this disaster has become. I hope that my fair city will find someplace to allow evacuees to settle. I can’t imagine a place they would fit in any better than here in the A-T-L. It’s time to sprinkle a delightful brand of Cajun spice into our particular southern culture. If it’s done well, we will be better for it.
For now, the Mississippi Gulf coast is in shreds and New Orleans, Louisiana, among the most graceful, earthy, real, musical, delicious, colorful and unique cities in our great country is shut down, fully evacuating, a certified American urban disaster area. May God be with the souls and families of those who have perished or are lost, those who have left there, those who remain there, and, most especially those who have gone there to help. Every dollar donated, every open home, each welcoming gesture to evacuees, and the safe havens and shelters offered, become part of the healing, but amidst the healing we take time to mourn the loss, the loss of lives, of homes and communities, of hopes and dreams and plans and possessions, of place and culture.
I have no doubt that New Orleans will be rebuilt, that Loyola and Tulane will once again welcome students for a fall semester much like this one that was interrupted just before it began. I don’t believe rebuilding could be stopped, even if some in the federal government want to try. I am certain that spirit of this place that is more than a place will prevail, but, in the meantime, soon she will sit empty, finally, and it breaks my heart.
Edit/Update: Yesterday the boys went thrift shop hopping to try to boost their wardrobes. They brought their laptops, and mine and roommate each brought one musical instrument (mine brought the electric mandolin). They left their amps, the other musical instruments and any clothes they couldn't fit into the one backpack each they brought with four boys in a Toyota sedan. At least mine has access to all the clothes that his younger brother took in the draft they held to divvy up the goods before he went off to college.
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